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Little bird, little bird…
His voice echoes in my mind, and on instinct, my hands cover my ears, trying to drown out the sound that will never be silenced.
“Your back, Giana. Has he always done this to you when you’ve defied his orders?” he asks, but I can’t even begin to explain the intricacies of my father’s rage over the years.
“Giana, talk to me. Please.”
Dante’s voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. His eyes, crinkled at the corners as he looks at me, make him feel somehow more human than the night I met him. Like he’s more than just a tough, strong, unbreakable man. His feelings run deep. He cares.
“What’s happening, Dante?” I ask, ignoring the abuse. I’m genuinely so confused I can’t see straight, and I don’t want to talk about the time I was locked away in the cellar. “Why did you come for me? Why didn’t you tell me you were part of the DeSantis family? Were you really just trying to use me to get closer to my father? I don’t understand. Make me understand, Dante.”
He scoffs, his demeanor flipping like a switch. He stands and runs his fingers through his hair as he walks toward the crackling fire, the scent of pine lingering in his absence.
“The night I met you, I didn’t have a clue who you really were. Every second of the time I spent with you was real. I was drawn to you in a way I can’t explain because words wouldn’t do it justice. All I can say is I knew I needed more of you then. Before I knew anything more.
“Did my motives switch once I found out who you are? I won’t fucking lie to you. Yes. Initially, yes. I thought I could use you. Could make your father pay through you for what he’s done to my family. But I couldn’t. I can’t be the type of man your father is. I fell way too fucking fast for you, and fuck, I wasn’t supposed to, but I won’t apologize for it. The only thing I’m sorry for is my early intentions with you. I fucking regret it with every goddamn breath.”
He brushes my hair out of my face and shakes his head.
“I was a fucking fool for thinking I’d ever be able to hurt you. I am sorry, Giana. I hate that I ever had those thoughts, but I can’t lie to you and tell you my intentions were always pure. What I can tell you is that now, I’d kill any man who thought they could even come near you. I want to skin your father alive for the shit he did to you.”
I close my eyes and try to fend off the subtle sting of his betrayal. His words hurt. They cut into me in a similar fashion to my brother’s blade. But that was before. He didn’t know me then. He was plotting his revenge, and I was going to be a casualty in the process. And I believe him when he says he wants to hurt my father. His eyes are somehow an even darker shade than normal as he speaks the words.
I don’t want to hate Dante for his actions in the beginning. Don’t want to hold him in contempt of the shit he did when this was nothing more than a game to either of us. Because wasn’t my plan to leave him in the end, too? This was never supposed to be a forever thing. On either of our ends.
“Why did you lie to me about your last name?” he asks. “Was there more to that?”
I’m reminded that I deceived him in the beginning, too. Had I used my real last name…would we even be here right now? Probably not. We’ve both been untruthful.
“I know my last name is one that holds power in this city. I live under my father’s thumb. Don’t you understand? For Christ’s sake, I told you the night I met you that my life isn’t my own.” My body shakes uncontrollably as I work to get my nerves under control. “I couldn’t risk the news of me being in a sex club of all places getting back to him. You don’t even know what he would have done to me…or…I guess you do.”
My cheeks heat with the embarrassment of Dante seeing my wounds. Wounds my father put on my body. Should I be insecure about this? No. I know that. But it doesn’t change the feelings from washing over me.
He comes back to me, walking over, erasing the distance between us in three long strides and falling to his knees.
The big, bad mafia man is on his knees for me.
And all I feel right now is anger.
“I’m fucking sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Dante places his head in my lap, on the fabric that was once draped around his wife, and my anger is replaced with something else entirely.
“I get it. I really do, Dante. This was never supposed to be anything, but suddenly…it just was. But I don’t know where I am. And I don’t know what’s about to happen to me. My father must know I’m with you. Are you prepared for the rage of the biggest and oldest mafia family? Because I know Gabriel Amato, and he will not stop until I pay—until we both pay—for this.”
He looks up at me, the whiskey in his eyes matching the one sitting only two feet away on an end table in a rocks glass.
“I will kill every single man who threatens to come between us with my bare fucking hands. That includes your father. I will gut him like the bastard he is, and I don’t care what comes of it.” His words are gritted out from behind tight lips, and they hit me in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt before.
The man I’m falling for…
The one who rescued me from the cartel…
Who risked his life in so many ways, and for me…
He’s threatening the life of the man who created me.
And I don’t think this feeling swirling in my gut is one of terror or resentment. It’s of relief.
Relief floods through my body from my head down to my toes, sparking every fiber of my being to life once more, waking me up and energizing me in a way that both calms my senses and sets them on fire. Sights and sounds and feelings… Everything becomes intensified when I think of my father finally getting the death he deserves.
